Ecological and Evolutionary Physiology of the Stress Response and Stress Proteins

应激反应和应激蛋白的生态学和进化生理学

• 批准号: 9986163
• 负责人: Stephen Roberts
• 金额: $ 6.65万
• 依托单位: University of Nevada Las Vegas
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2000
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2000-06-01 至 2003-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=9986163&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Ecological; Evolutionary; Physiology; Stress; Response

A major issue in ecological and evolutionary physiology is the relationship among the traits of complex organisms, organisms' ability to exploit diverse environments, and species' persistence in time. The proposed investigation in part uses the heat-shock protein Hsp70 in Drosophila as a model trait/organism/system to address this issue. In response to heat or other stresses, nearly all organisms express heat-shock proteins (I-Isps), highly-conserved proteins that contribute to stress tolerance by functioning as molecular chaperones. Research supported by previous NSF awards has established that experimental manipulation of copy number of the hsp7O gene of Drosophila, which encodes Hsp7O, is sufficient to cause changes in outright survival of natural thermal stress, and that natural populations vary in Hsp70 expression in ways that are consistent with it being adaptive. The proposed research will build upon a recent and significant preliminary finding: that not only does Hsp70 protect against heat death, it also mitigates major morphological anomalies in wings and abdomens of adults that have undergone exposure to natural thermal stress during their pre-adult stages. Such morphological abnormalities can occur in 10% of surviving adults and potentially compromise courtship and mating, territorial defense, oviposition, flight, and water balance, each a likely component of fitness. The proposed research will first relate the incidence of these abnormalities to the temperatures that non-adult Drosophila undergo in the laboratory, and then verify that similar relationships occur for Drosophila in nature. Next, the proposed research will establish the effect of these abnormalities on courtship and mating, territorial defense, oviposition, flight, and water balance. Finally, the proposed experiment will genetically and experimentally manipulate Hsp expression to establish the role of Hsp7O in protecting or mitigating morphological defects. The projected outcome of the proposed research has immense potential to integrate molecular, genetic, functional, and evolutionary perspectives to advance understanding of adaptation.

生态和进化生理学的一个主要问题是复杂生物体的特征、生物体利用不同环境的能力以及物种在时间上的持久性之间的关系。拟议的研究部分使用果蝇中的热休克蛋白 Hsp70 作为模型性状/生物体/系统来解决这个问题。为了应对热或其他应激，几乎所有生物体都会表达热休克蛋白 (I-Issp)，这是一种高度保守的蛋白，通过充当分子伴侣来促进应激耐受。先前 NSF 奖项支持的研究已证实，对编码 Hsp7O 的果蝇 hsp7O 基因的拷贝数进行实验操作，足以引起自然热应激下彻底生存的变化，并且自然群体中 Hsp70 表达的变化方式如下：与它的适应性相一致。拟议的研究将建立在最近一项重要的初步发现的基础上：Hsp70不仅可以防止热死，还可以减轻在成体前阶段经历过自然热应激的成虫翅膀和腹部的主要形态异常。这种形态异常可能发生在 10% 的幸存成虫中，并可能损害求偶和交配、领地防御、产卵、飞行和水平衡，而这些都是健康的可能组成部分。拟议的研究将首先将这些异常的发生率与非成年果蝇在实验室中经历的温度联系起来，然后验证自然界中果蝇是否也存在类似的关系。接下来，拟议的研究将确定这些异常对求偶和交配、领地防御、产卵、飞行和水平衡的影响。最后，所提出的实验将从遗传和实验上操纵 Hsp 表达，以确定 Hsp7O 在保护或减轻形态缺陷中的作用。拟议研究的预计结果具有整合分子、遗传、功能和进化观点以增进对适应的理解的巨大潜力。